Adobe CS to be CC only from now on....

I'm just a small (edu) user, and I must admit to not having used Creative Cloud. But what's the play here from a user standpoint? I'm currently on CS4, since it does (aside from some buggy bits) everything I need.

Thinking of upgrading to CS6, then sitting by until I need something that CS6 can't handle, either by feature or file format.

Has anyone here used CC? It looks as if you still have the applications resident on your hard disk...it's just that now you're paying on subscription rather than lump sum.

Broadband is fairly ubiquitous now. People are connected on the go, so almost all creative professionals should be able to get access. This also allows them to update on-the-fly and push out incremental changes rather than forcing users to buy a Suite and pay an upgrade if they only need some small bump from one of the programs (i.e. Photoshop content-aware fills). This is win-win for users, as the yearly price will likely be cheaper than a yearly purchase of Creative Suite (even with the upgrade discount). This also means Adobe can account for a constant revenue stream, avoid customer service issues with 'activation' and end per-computer DRM. You log-in, your account is verified and you go.

By evening out revenue over the year and being able to push updates when they are ready, rather than according to some formula, the company can be more flexible and avoid issues of updates, product manufacture and security. This is the future®. Software is licensed to you, so long as you keep paying. In the end, if you are a heavy user (what professional isn't) you are always up-to-date and the cost over time is cheaper relative to value added from new features (as opposed to annual or bi-annual repurchase).

The real why that isn't mentioned:

Piracy

Plain and simple. It's pretty hard to 'crack' an online system. Someone will probably come up with a way, but if you look at other systems out there (Xbox Live, Spotify, etc.) piracy is pretty much nil. It also effectively kills the used software market.

It's about money, it always is. Not that it's really 'wrong' considering they are a business. People using Adobe CS to create products want to be paid as well - every time their work is used, in fact (royalties, reprints, etc). Same theory here.

Don't be surprised if upcoming gaming systems don't follow this model as well (NeXtBox, PS4, etc.). Steam lead the way here.

Edit: Also, this seems like it should be in a different forum, as it is platform independent.... but I'm not sure which..... Anybody have any suggestions?

Edit2: I applaud Adobe for doing this. I switched to competitors a long time ago and I imagine other non-professional users will too, which means the competition will get more funds and will beef up their offerings from increased revenue. I'd imagine (in the not too distant future) we will look back at this as the time when Adobe's stranglehold on the creative market was finally broken.

Plain and simple. It's pretty hard to 'crack' an online system. Someone will probably come up with a way, but if you look at other systems out there (Xbox Live, Spotify, etc.) piracy is pretty much nil. It also effectively kills the used software market.

It's about money, it always is. Not that it's really 'wrong' considering they are a business. People using Adobe CS to create products want to be paid as well - every time their work is used, in fact (royalties, reprints, etc). Same theory here.

Don't be surprised if upcoming gaming systems don't follow this model as well (NeXtBox, PS4, etc.). Steam lead the way here.

Edit: Also, this seems like it should be in a different forum, as it is platform independent.... but I'm not sure which..... Anybody have any suggestions?

Edit2: I applaud Adobe for doing this. I switched to competitors a long time ago and I imagine other non-professional users will too, which means the competition will get more funds and will beef up their offerings from increased revenue. I'd imagine (in the not too distant future) we will look back at this as the time when Adobe's stranglehold on the creative market was finally broken.

I agree with this. The reason Adobe became so well used in spite of the prices is that people pirated Photoshop because it was so good. Then, when they became professionals they (or their companies) paid for it.

Now there are applications like "Acorn 4" available I think Adobe's market-share will tumble.

Eh, I've used Pixelmator for a long while now and just got Acorn...and I still miss stuff from the last time I had Photoshop, which was years and years ago. Looks like Photoshop Elements (along with some others) will remain under perpetual licensing, it'll be interesting to see what features trickle down to that over time and how it compares to the smaller dev apps.

As for the subscription, it might actually get me back into using Adobe stuff. The price has been a barrier for me, but the times when I've really wished I had PS or AI or whatever were usually for short term projects (vs personal/hobbyist stuff where I'm fine with working around Pixelmator/Acorn's limitations). Sure as hell wouldn't keep a sub up cause the pricing, but if I just want/need apps for a month or two it'd be tempting to get it just to get them done.

(And while the greater topic is a platform independent thing, twindux is presumably on a Mac and asking how well Creative Cloud functions on it, so the OP at least can be considered platform specific enough)

No! No no no no! Fuck no! I have the Steam version of Splinter Cell Conviction, and Assassins Creed II.

During Splinter Cell, I lost my Internet connection and game went off line waiting to reconnect. Turns out the Steam server had a minor crash or some crap. So for an hour I couldn't play a game I bought.

And Assasssins Creed II, same thing. Except there was a thunder storm outside and for some reason my router goes haywire. Rainstorm? Perfect time to play a video game in the dark. But could I play it? No. Stupid Internet connection flakes out. And the online DRM stops me from playing a game that I bought, a Mac version that cost more then the pc version!

These are rare occurrences for me. Only happened once on my side. Once on Steam's side. Plus the thing is, it's a game. You're telling me that if I have some important work during typhoon season in Hong Kong, and that disrupts some Internet lines, I may not be able to do some work?

There was a huge earth quake of the coast of Taiwan (not the tsunami one) which snapped the deep ocean telecom lines between HK and the US. They had to reroute the lines to go through Europe into the US. The first week the Internet was painfully slow. Took about a month to get back to full speed as they relaid the telecom lines in the Pacific Ocean.

What if North Korea decides to lob a nuclear war head at California and by pure chance it blows up Adobe's main office. Other then feeling a little sad, you're telling me I can't use Illustrator and Photoshop to do my work so I can feed my children and my wife? Okay I'm not married nor do I have kids, but I might one day, and I don't want this Internet DRM to force me into a position where I have to look at my kids, 9600boy and 9600girl, and tell them they can't eat today because Adobe is now a pile of radioactive rubble.

Think of the children! Say no to online DRM! Hillary Clinton 2016!I think I got a little carried away there.

You're telling me that if I have some important work during typhoon season in Hong Kong, and that disrupts some Internet lines, I may not be able to do some work?

There was a huge earth quake of the coast of Taiwan (not the tsunami one) which snapped the deep ocean telecom lines between HK and the US. They had to reroute the lines to go through Europe into the US. The first week the Internet was painfully slow. Took about a month to get back to full speed as they relaid the telecom lines in the Pacific Ocean.

OT: I remember that. Internet here was pretty much useless.

Kind of like how some games are no longer supported because the multiplayer servers have long since gone offline. Perhaps they could do something where you have to verify one time within a month rather than at each open? After all, it is a monthly subscription fee.

Similarly, what happens if your fee doesn't get processed or some other similar credit mix-up? Is there a grace period or does your copy get 'deactivated' immediately.

In this case, it's like a carpenter having to lease his hammers from the manufacturer. I think it shows a significant amount of contempt for a craftsperson to hold his tools hostage in such a way. But as others have pointed out, Adobe has moved from its roots in management by engineers to management by sales / marketing over the years. You change what you measure... incremental improvements between versions and nickel-and-diming customers.

Um... I think people seem to be getting a little bit hysterical here. AFAIK there is no suggestion that you need to be online all the time for your CC apps to work - that would be utterly ridiculous.

My understanding is that the CC apps need to access the internet at least once a month, presumably to check that you are still subscribing. I can't imagine many situations when that would be a problem for me - though astronauts on the international space station may disagree...

Edit: From the Adobe website [http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/creativecloud/faq.html] "Do I need ongoing internet access to use my Creative Cloud desktop applications? No. Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer, so you won't need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis.

You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you'll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you'll be able to use products for 180 days even if you're offline."

Um... I think people seem to be getting a little bit hysterical here. AFAIK there is no suggestion that you need to be online all the time for your CC apps to work - that would be utterly ridiculous.

My understanding is that the CC apps need to access the internet at least once a month, presumably to check that you are still subscribing. I can't imagine many situations when that would be a problem for me - though astronauts on the international space station may disagree...

I give it a month before there's a hack that reduces the need for even this.

Um... I think people seem to be getting a little bit hysterical here. AFAIK there is no suggestion that you need to be online all the time for your CC apps to work - that would be utterly ridiculous.

Hysteria is the fun part. It's being on the edge where life is lived.

Quote:

Edit: From the Adobe website [http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/creativecloud/faq.html] "Do I need ongoing internet access to use my Creative Cloud desktop applications? No. Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer, so you won't need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis.

You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you'll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you'll be able to use products for 180 days even if you're offline."

Silliness aside, I'm glad to hear that. I'm trying to think of any rational counter argument to this model but most are trivial and just requires a paradigm shift of the mind.

The only thing I can think of is if something catastrophic happens to Adobe, i.e. NK nuke, the great big California earthquake every expects will tear that heathen land from the rest of the US and sink into the ocean, if the rest of us around the world can still use our software. But it's not a serious consideration other then if you're a graphics artist, the visual imagery one could cook up in Photoshop or Illustrator is a fun challenge.

Speaking of AI and PS. I'm starting to wish Illustrator had some of the features from Indesign. I have Adobe CS5 at the moment. I've downloaded the demo version of Adobe Photoshop CS6, but it's not compelling enough to upgrade to it. Indesign CS5 is so damn slow with a simple multipage document. Is Indesign CS6 faster? I should download it and check it out, but I might just wait for the CC version.

Speaking of AI and PS. I'm starting to wish Illustrator had some of the features from Indesign.

Veering OT, I absolutely agree with you. Frankly, I don't quite understand why the two programs don't merge - often InDesign has better vector tools than Illustrator (stroke selection options, for example). Now there is no financial advantage to Adobe in selling two programs instead of one, why not just have one?

My biggest frustration is that Illustrator can't Export as PDF, as ID can, instead having to use Save as a Copy (otherwise you find yourself working on the PDF afterwards) and then having to remember to change the drop-down default to .pdf as well. I get caught by this at least 5 times a week...

I don't think it's entirely OT. It could be one of the advantages of this business model.

I've avoided Indesign as much as I can, fortunately because most of my work now has been one page poster* designs. To get around the PDF function in Indesign, I just upload outlined zipped AI files to the printers. I do have some old designs I revise once in a while in Indesign for a client. I wonder if Adobe will have a one week or one day subscription for some of their software packages. That would be nice.

I'll pay for AI and PS. And when I need Indesign for that rare time, I'll just click a subscription button for a day or a week. I'll have to check with Adobe's website if they have a granular subscription program. That could be a pro on the Adobe CC vs CS

My biggest frustration is that Illustrator can't Export as PDF, as ID can, instead having to use Save as a Copy (otherwise you find yourself working on the PDF afterwards) and then having to remember to change the drop-down default to .pdf as well. I get caught by this at least 5 times a week.../OT

I'm not aware of any practical reason why you can't work on the PDF as your default file format, as long as the 'Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities' option is checked.

For multi-page documents, I have all my AI docs saved as individual pages with the 'PDF compatible' option checked and place them in ID as images, generating PDFs from there.

No! No no no no! Fuck no! I have the Steam version of Splinter Cell Conviction, and Assassins Creed II.

During Splinter Cell, I lost my Internet connection and game went off line waiting to reconnect. Turns out the Steam server had a minor crash or some crap. So for an hour I couldn't play a game I bought.

And Assasssins Creed II, same thing. Except there was a thunder storm outside and for some reason my router goes haywire. Rainstorm? Perfect time to play a video game in the dark. But could I play it? No. Stupid Internet connection flakes out. And the online DRM stops me from playing a game that I bought, a Mac version that cost more then the pc version!

Those are not Steam problems, those are Ubisoft problems. Ubi tried to go an always online connection route. I think they backed off because they realized how fucking stupid it is.

Reading the Ars article on this, no one actually took the time to read how it works. Both Microsoft Office and Creative Cloud subs work the same way: The programs are still local to your computer. The license checks in every once in a while to confirm it's still good. Internet connection is not required 100% of the time. Whether or not CC is the better option for you, there's so much hysteria because they think that "the cloud" means "I run the app from some server somewhere". I think the only service like that is in video games with OnLive. Everything else, "cloud" means the server is the master and makes copies to your local machine.

If you've been using a Creative Suite product since they introduced activation then it has already been checking for validation for quite some time - basically what we see today will continue along as it always has. It will be interesting to see how it is priced when one considers small studios although it might give a good incentive for people to be up to date and for the business using the software to plan based on a consistent year on year cost rather than a big bang every so many years with the often unpredictable release schedule.

For me I've moved away from Adobe once I finished university - it is a great suite of software but major over kill for what I use it for.

My biggest frustration is that Illustrator can't Export as PDF, as ID can, instead having to use Save as a Copy (otherwise you find yourself working on the PDF afterwards) and then having to remember to change the drop-down default to .pdf as well. I get caught by this at least 5 times a week.../OT

I'm not aware of any practical reason why you can't work on the PDF as your default file format, as long as the 'Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities' option is checked.

For multi-page documents, I have all my AI docs saved as individual pages with the 'PDF compatible' option checked and place them in ID as images, generating PDFs from there.

Not wanting to stay OT for too long, but many of my clients can't open PDF files with the 'Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" option enabled. I also need to generate dated PDFs as they get updated regularly, so that doesn't help either.

My point is that it would be incredibly simple for Adobe to match output flows for ID and AI (indeed, my PDF output settings in AI are present when I export from ID), yet they behave as though they are utterly different programs much of the time. Why? And, now that Adobe is subscription-only (effectively), will there be better competition able to deal with Adobe files?

I'm a semi-frequent user of CS6 Design Standard for personal projects and tend to upgrade every two to three versions. Since I don't use CS6 to make money and this is going to end up being far more expensive for me - CS6 will most likely be my last version of Adobe professional software.

For the Master Collection, this might be a cost savings, or for someone that might need to use it every six months, but for someone that might use it 3-4 times a month, this just doesn't make sense.

Adobe apps, especially PageMaker and Photoshop, are part of what Apple built their professional credentials upon. Therefore, as long as we don't stray too far, I have no issues with this thread - many Mac Pros depend on CS/CC for their livelihoods.

/mod mode off

On a much more personal note, this annoys me greatly. I work in .gov support, and in many cases, external network connections are either prohibited due to security policies, or otherwise require extensive documentation. And software that "phones home" like this is just a little annoying to me, and most of my Mac users have CS installed. I expect Adobe to loose a few sales in the .gov/.mil area over this. The flip side, for freelance or other pros who, as Japtor mentioned, only need the apps for short-term projects... this may be ideal. I'd rather "rent" CS for a month for a project at a fraction of the cost of the suite rather than paying full retail price if I am only going to need it for a short time. As often as their updates are coming out, simplifies things on my end. For my customers who are NOT on restricted networks, it will simplify licensing a bit I believe... I get annoyed at "professional" instalations where one department refused to pay for software maintenance because "CS 3 is 'good enough'" but yet want me to keep them patched along with all the offices that did fork over the money to upgrade. This should simplify that a little bit.

Not wanting to stay OT for too long, but many of my clients can't open PDF files with the 'Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" option enabled. I also need to generate dated PDFs as they get updated regularly, so that doesn't help either.

Fair enough. I will say that for what I do, InDesign's vector capabilities are emphatically not a substitute for Illustrator's. I've tried replicating my AI work in ID and it's a complete non-starter.

Um... I think people seem to be getting a little bit hysterical here. AFAIK there is no suggestion that you need to be online all the time for your CC apps to work - that would be utterly ridiculous.

My understanding is that the CC apps need to access the internet at least once a month, presumably to check that you are still subscribing. I can't imagine many situations when that would be a problem for me - though astronauts on the international space station may disagree...

Edit: From the Adobe website [http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/creativecloud/faq.html] "Do I need ongoing internet access to use my Creative Cloud desktop applications? No. Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer, so you won't need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis.

You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you'll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you'll be able to use products for 180 days even if you're offline."

While this makes sense, I don't really see the fundamental difference between CS and CC. CS already needed an internet connection to verify your license and to update its apps (ok, you could activate your installation by phone, but online activation was default). If I understand this correctly, CC needs regular connections (every 30 or 180 days respectively), but apart from that the main difference seems to be the update cycle.

Adobe apps, especially PageMaker and Photoshop, are part of what Apple built their professional credentials upon. Therefore, as long as we don't stray too far, I have no issues with this thread - many Mac Pros depend on CS/CC for their livelihoods.

/mod mode off

One thing I can do to make this totally a Mac topic (maybe not for long) is if Adobe plans to for the Mac version adopt Lion's document autosave feature.

I'm torn on this. For Word/Text documents, I love it. For editing photos, I sorta like it, but not really. I want non-destructive editing. What happens if I use preview to quickly crop or adjust the color curves in the photo, it starts to autosave. That bugs me mightily. Sure I can go back a few versions anytime but I don't want that. And yes, I can save-as/duplicate, but it hasn't become muscle memory yet to do that first because I only use preview for quick editing of files for facebook purposes for images I have from my camera.

Basically the UI is behind the function. They need a better UI so when I hit save it should open a dialog window, and on one side it should show the original file, and the history revisions during the default period Lion autosaves. And then with a click of a button I should be able to choose the points I want the version history to be saved, and if I want it saved to a new file. Visual cues would be great.

I like the concept of version history, just not happy with the current UI set up. And if Adobe adopts Lion's file version history API, then I hope that comes along with a better visual UI.

And more importantly the ability to disable the feature if I want too. I often times open up old files for reference or to drag elements to the new file I don't want to redo from scratch. While I do this, I don't want Lion/ML to autosave the old file and then when I go through finder I see the time stamp shows the most recent date. I don't want some file I designed in 2012 or 2010 showing as 2013+

Speaking of Lion file version history API, is any professional software company using it? Or is this feature dead in the water?

Not wanting to stay OT for too long, but many of my clients can't open PDF files with the 'Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" option enabled. I also need to generate dated PDFs as they get updated regularly, so that doesn't help either.

Fair enough. I will say that for what I do, InDesign's vector capabilities are emphatically not a substitute for Illustrator's. I've tried replicating my AI work in ID and it's a complete non-starter.

I'll shut up with the OT-ness, now!

I have an idea of what he's talking about. Strokes are better handled in ID then AI. But outside of that, for vector art, AI is king. Well, AI + Wacom is king.

Anyone use their Wacom with Apple's Ink software in Mountain Lion (I forget if it's in Lion too)? I tried for a while. Kind of a PITA to use. So I stopped.

fro M thispointOnlam UsingOS xMountain lionInkwith_cmy wawm tfbet

Back to keyboard. I'm sure if I practiced long enough I might get the hang of it, but right now I type significantly faster then I write.

FFS, I JUST said it's not always on. That's not how anything except for a few stupid video games work. The license works offline, just don't be offline for more than 30 days in a row. If you buy the next edition all the time, then this the scenario where the sub comes out on top.

I don't worry about how the software functions, I'm sure it will be great. I worry about Adobe morphing into Comcast, forcing its customers into bundles they don't need at ever-increasing rates. Monthly rents may be good for business planning, but they are horrible for individuals and independents. Adobe is creating an upper and a lower class within the creative world. Very soon, the non-Adobe tribe will out-innovate them.

I'm finding a lot of my major publication/publisher clients went on-board with CC the moment it debuted a year or so ago or whenever it was. I think especially for business users, turning software into a predictable, monthly expense rather than a huge outlay every 12-24 months, was incredibly shrewd. As a small business owner, I love it to death.

The divide that has been created here is between professional users and casual users. The subscription model is just dandy for people like me who rely on The Holy Trinity™ (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator) for 8+ hours a day, every day. My skills and career are permanently tied to Adobe software for the foreseeable future. As a result, I've never had an issue with paying Adobe's prices, either. It's a business expense.

I have a feeling Adobe would just as soon completely cut off the casual user—the person who "dabbles" in Photoshop every now and then—and cater to the professional user more directly and exclusively with the CC suite. It's professional software. Where Adobe has been weaker, I think, is amateur/prosumer software. They have Photoshop Essentials, but nothing equivalent to InDesign or Illustrator or Dreamweaver for beginners or soccer moms. I suspect Adobe knows this, and once they have their pro market happily locked into subscriptions, they'll re-focus on capturing the audience that is hesitant to pay $50 a month for software they barely understand, much less need.

Oh, and the "phone home" licensing for CC has been cracked for some time, but it's not a trivial process. Again, cutting off casual piracy. There's no anti-piracy scheme/DRM in the world that can't be circumvented by someone who is knowledgable and determined. But that's a vanishingly small number of people.

The divide that has been created here is between professional users and casual users. The subscription model is just dandy for people like me who rely on The Holy Trinity™ (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator) for 8+ hours a day, every day. My skills and career are permanently tied to Adobe software for the foreseeable future. As a result, I've never had an issue with paying Adobe's prices, either. It's a business expense.

The thing about this model is that absolutely f*cks the self-employed freelancer operating out of his spare bedroom in the event of a cash-flow crisis. Your major client goes out of business, or just shifts from 30-day to 60-day terms, and it's possible that you could be facing some very lean times. The last thing you need is having to find fifty bucks out of the money earmarked for your mortgage, or electricity bill, or for food, just to make sure the software you rely on to earn a living keeps working.

I don't mean to be snarky, but that's what budgeting is for. I totally get the "feast or famine" problem of freelancing (I'm a one-man operation, with an assistant I contract with as-needed), but I'd rather plan for that $50 a month than be faced with a sudden $500 upgrade outlay because one of my clients decided to upgrade and send me files in a format I can't open.

But that may be unique to my situation; I've found a lot of the publishing houses I work for upgrade very quickly, so I've always needed to jump on new versions of the CS suite faster than I normally would for my own needs.

Best budgeting in the world can't help you in the face of something totally unplanned. That's what unplanned means. So, you budgeted for three lean months and it runs to four? Presumably, you'd just have to put aside an entire year's worth of $50 payments, just in case, so it's hardly spreading the cost, is it?

(Also, $50/mth is sort of reasonable. Try paying $75, which is what the UK price works out to. Adobe used to claim regionalizing the packaging and shipping costs and all sorts of other horseshit was the reason why their software was so expensive. Take all that away, and it turns out they just like to swap the $ sign for a £ sign.)

Adobe apps, especially PageMaker and Photoshop, are part of what Apple built their professional credentials upon. Therefore, as long as we don't stray too far, I have no issues with this thread - many Mac Pros depend on CS/CC for their livelihoods.

/mod mode off

One thing I can do to make this totally a Mac topic (maybe not for long) is if Adobe plans to for the Mac version adopt Lion's document autosave feature.

I'm torn on this. For Word/Text documents, I love it. For editing photos, I sorta like it, but not really. I want non-destructive editing. What happens if I use preview to quickly crop or adjust the color curves in the photo, it starts to autosave. That bugs me mightily. Sure I can go back a few versions anytime but I don't want that. And yes, I can save-as/duplicate, but it hasn't become muscle memory yet to do that first because I only use preview for quick editing of files for facebook purposes for images I have from my camera.

Basically the UI is behind the function. They need a better UI so when I hit save it should open a dialog window, and on one side it should show the original file, and the history revisions during the default period Lion autosaves. And then with a click of a button I should be able to choose the points I want the version history to be saved, and if I want it saved to a new file. Visual cues would be great.

I like the concept of version history, just not happy with the current UI set up. And if Adobe adopts Lion's file version history API, then I hope that comes along with a better visual UI.

And more importantly the ability to disable the feature if I want too. I often times open up old files for reference or to drag elements to the new file I don't want to redo from scratch. While I do this, I don't want Lion/ML to autosave the old file and then when I go through finder I see the time stamp shows the most recent date. I don't want some file I designed in 2012 or 2010 showing as 2013+

Speaking of Lion file version history API, is any professional software company using it? Or is this feature dead in the water?

I'm not sure when they added it, but there's an option to ask to save changes on close now, might be a Mountain Lion thing, I just remember rejoicing when it showed up. Apps that support auto save will still autosave, but otherwise the old style save functionality is there with manual saving and asking to save or revert/discard* changes when you close the document.

*I forget if this is the standard dialog, but at least in Pixelmator it's "revert to saved" or something...which is particularly annoying since there's no keyboard shortcut for it that I can find, vs the cmd-delete used for discard (or don't save or whatever) in new unsaved doc dialogs.

@cateye: That $50/month you keep quoting as predictable monthly expenses, that's the "monthly cost" if you get the yearly subscription. You pay the whole of the subscription up front. So you're still paying $600/year in one large chunk, though I guess if you're diligent you can set aside the $50/month so that you're ready for the $600 re-sub next year.

@cateye: That $50/month you keep quoting as predictable monthly expenses, that's the "monthly cost" if you get the yearly subscription. You pay the whole of the subscription up front. So you're still paying $600/year in one large chunk, though I guess if you're diligent you can set aside the $50/month so that you're ready for the $600 re-sub next year.

If you do the month-to-month payment, it's $75/month.

This is incorrect (at least, in the United States). It's $50 a month, billed monthly, but it's a 1-year commitment, like a cell phone contract, with a one-month grace period (you can cancel within the first month and owe nothing). If you go month-to-month, then it's $75 a month. There's no benefit (or option) for a lump-sum pre-payment, that I can see.

This is assuming you don't have an existing CS3-or-newer install; your serial number gets you a year at $30/month, which is a nice discount.

I totally understand that the subscription model is not right for everyone—I think it's unfortunate Adobe is going in that direction exclusively. My only point is that depending on the ebb and flow of your business, it can be a pretty good deal.

Maybe he means the share of people who pirate Photoshop with no intention of every paying a cent for it. People who need Photoshop will pay for it, have been paying for it, and will always pay for it. Whether you pay for it month to month or all at once is a minor detail for the accountants to work out.

Best budgeting in the world can't help you in the face of something totally unplanned. That's what unplanned means. So, you budgeted for three lean months and it runs to four? Presumably, you'd just have to put aside an entire year's worth of $50 payments, just in case, so it's hardly spreading the cost, is it?

Best budgeting in the world can't help you in the face of a nuclear strike on California that ends all Creative Suite development in perpetuity. What's your point? There's always risk in business.

Since I have been buying a new copy every few years, this is a huge price increase. I am already looking for alternatives, both open source and possibly Corel. I use Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat a lot, but CS Design Standard every couple of years has always worked well for balancing the high cost of CS with getting the appropriate number of new features. No way I am paying ~3X to maybe get new features.

Also, since Adobe has a guaranteed income stream, there is going to be even less incentive for them to fix problems, or add new features or innovate.

Since this is essentially a licensing scheme, it will be cracked and pirated copies will be available as soon as it is released. There are going to be a lot more folks looking for pirated copies once this goes into effect, so I think this will be a net lose for Adobe. There are a LOT of folks out there that are using Edu licenses with young kids in school, friends in college etc. that are using CS casually, maybe for a photography hobby. These folks are going to be strongly tempted once cracked versions appear.

Me, I don't really use the advanced features, even as a hobby photographer. I already am testing Inkscape, and while not as slick as Illustrator, is actually much more intuitive to use, AND its SVG and PDF files are much more cross compatible. So, my Illustrator problem is fixed. Inkscape definitely doesn't' look as sharp, but its tools are surprising well thought out. It will also simplify sharing files with others, as sharing Illustrator files as PDFs does work, but they get very large quickly and recipient rarely have illustrator to edit them. Inkscape is open source, so anyone can edit files relatively easy, never mind the steep learning curve.

I had been using Lightroom, but I am going to switch to Aperture. I liked both equally when I had tested them a few years back, but the idea of cross-platform steered me to Adobe. So, No LR4 and Aperture it is. I am also keeping my eye on DXO optics and a few other raw converters.

Photoshop itself will be tricky. I am going to use what I have for the moment, but I'll be waiting for someone to release something that has a few of the power features I need. GIMP just doesn't quite have them yet in a easy to use format.

The irony of this is that Nikon and Canon are likely to get hosed by this decision, as ACR will end at 8 for CS6, so there will be an even tougher sell for new DSLRs, in an already slumping market, if they have to switch to Creative Cloud as well.

Acrobat has been pretty crappy for a long time. In fact, I just realized that I don't even have Acrobat properly updated, which means I haven't run it in quite some time, so no problem losing this one. Preview does more than what I need, and PDFTK from the command line does the rest.